


Her Amity

by Robertdoc



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Minor Violence, Post-Episode: s01e18 Agony of a Witch, Spoilers, Written Pre-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robertdoc/pseuds/Robertdoc
Summary: Luz didn't want Amity to come before she left to rescue Eda. Amity didn't know Eda needed rescuing until she came by a day late. There were many things Luz wished Amity wouldn't have to know.But Luz knew. All the ways Amity would refuse to believe what Lilith had done. All the ways she'd refuse to go against the Emperor's Coven. All the ways she wouldn't let herself throw away the life-long dream she'd already given so much of the goodness of her life to.Which was still so much better than her throwing it away. For someone who already let someone else she...adored ruin her life for her.So Luz runs away to do it alone - or at least without Amity, Willow or Gus. But Amity has other plans...one way or another. Finale wish-fulfillment doubling as a pre-emptive attack on...less imaginative potential outcomes.
Relationships: Amity Blight & Lilith Clawthorne, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Eda Clawthorne & Luz Noceda, Gus & Luz Noceda & Willow Park
Comments: 7
Kudos: 224





	Her Amity

**Author's Note:**

> This is an exercise on wish-fulfillment that's also a pre-emptive strike against the more likely finale outcomes. Outcomes that may be more realistic than Amity just throwing away her devotion to the Coven/Lilith in only one episode. Outcomes that may well be more realistic than pulling the trigger on Lumity this early. Outcomes that may have already been set up to fill in most of S2 with angsty/time consuming "will she or won't she be on our side?" Amity plotlines, and other time honored obstacles to draw out everything so there's no full on happy ending until the finale - season or series.
> 
> Yet IMO - which is not meant to invalidate those who enjoy such dramatic plotlines, who are all for F/F animated couples and queer characters with divided loyalties getting the same long drawn out treatment as straight couples/characters, and who draw more meaning from such plotlines than a straight cis male like myself may be capable of - there's a certain lack of creativity and imagination to such formulas that, for once, may not need to eat up our time and heartache just to eat up story time.
> 
> For a show more creative, imaginative and downright close to groundbreaking than that, why should it fall into such limited thinking now? Not so much when it comes to Lumity, but Amity herself - why not show her mercy and do more with her journey than the drawn out cliches looming for her?
> 
> Why not put her more on the Asami route than the Lena Luthor route or even the Catra route, by making a decision to join the good side then and there without drawing out the mystery for another season - then let her work and struggle through the consequences alongside Luz and her new found family instead of merely pushing them away while she makes up her mind, whether that includes a quicker Lumity outcome or not [although letting an animated F/F couple be an official couple for longer than the final minutes of a series would be the most groundbreaking twist of all]
> 
> Wouldn't that allow for more variety than the setup for episodes and seasons worth of cliches, dilemmas and worn out formulas that the finale appears primed and ready to set up - even if going in different directions might require more work, and imagination, for surely capable writers? Wouldn't doing something different than such formulas be more in tune with the show we've gotten so far? Wouldn't that be more inspirational to many of those inspired by Amity, who don't look forward to being toyed with as eagerly as others might be?
> 
> Anyway, that's my best case scenario for the finale. And this was my way to write out and write through those hopes in between the countdown.

One day late. Amity’s cast came off one Belos blessed day late. A day she spent cutting off all communications with an outside world that could rub in what she missed, when she shouldn’t have missed it at all.

Regardless of the initial short-term benefits from why she missed it.

In any case, one day was enough for Amity to be somewhat ready. To bite the wand, go to the Owl House, endure the sure to be torturously chipper stories of what she missed at the Emperor’s castle, and get it over with so she could go back to enduring the other…tortuously chipper aspects of her life again at school tomorrow.

So she limped to the house, willing herself to keep control no matter what she heard. Like in her last walk here, only with crutches and a different reason she needed to stay calm here. Maybe that would be the primary reason again after enough infuriating, yet enduringly told stories from…the house’s youngest resident.

Like last time, the door was open. Like last time, Willow, Gus and that somewhat cute demon thing were already inside. Unlike last time, that much less cute owl thing in the door wasn’t shoving her in.

Unlike last time, it wasn’t even looking at her. Or smiling, much less hooting.

Unlike last time, Willow and Gus weren’t sitting around with a smile or tea. Unlike last time, the mildly adorable demon was jumping around rambling about invasions and making enemies suffer, instead of performing cheerleader moves.

Unlike last time, those three were the only ones in the living room.

“Amity!” Gus jumped up, stammering in fear around her in a more irritating way than usual. But that might have had less to do with what he was doing than what he wasn’t doing. Or saying. “Oh look, you’re healed! I’m sure you have lots of places that aren’t here to celebrate in, so…”

“Gus, there’s no point now,” Willow was only slightly more helpful in saying. “She might as well know now. She may be the last hope we have, for that matter.”

“But she told us she couldn’t know,” Gus got even less helpful and much more aggravating.

“I know that, but she wasn’t thinking straight when she did. But this is one time when Luz not thinking straight about her isn’t funny. Not that it was before, but now…”

“Okay, you can stop right now!” Amity called out – 50 percent out of confusion, 49 percent out of growing worry, and 1 percent to block out the “not thinking straight” line. At most. “Now start telling me what’s going on!”

Amity really must have lost her touch these last few months. Her old commanding queen of Hexside voice not only didn’t work, it seemed to inspire sadness rather than fear. If that was indeed why they looked sadder.

It had to be. Right?

“Luz didn’t want us to tell you,” Willow started. “And we won’t. Because you need to hear it from her. And you need to hear it now if there’s any chance you can…”

“Can what? Will you stop playing around and tell me?” Amity mustered what was left of her already failing control, pushing aside the most likely implications of why Luz wouldn’t tell her something. And even that didn’t work.

Instead of telling her what was going on already, Willow leveled Amity with a look of such seriousness – mixed with dashes of more typical desperate pleading – that everything which could freeze up inside Amity did.

“I’m going to do something I haven’t done in years. Something I wish I could have done again under better circumstances. I’m going to trust you. Please…please don’t prove me wrong to do that again. If I am, it’s not just me who’ll suffer this time…”

Willow made Amity’s heart jump into her throat, with a declaration Amity had dreamed of hearing under so much better circumstances. Only instead of feeling absolved, relieved and so sorry that it took this long, Amity felt a Grom-level of terror rising in her.

“Willow, you’re starting to scare me…”

“It’s not your fear that matters right now!” Willow somehow calmed down after that – of course, without bothering to clearly explain why she needed to calm down. Or saying anything else that could be understood.

Even if a clearer explanation sounded less and less like something to look forward to.

“When she…if she tells you what happens, please…just listen to her. You might not want to believe her, you might want to tell her she’s wrong for thinking what she thinks now, and you might think more about what this means for you. But I’m begging you…keep those feelings to yourself until you truly, completely listen to her.”

“And then don’t try to talk her out of it. Well, talk her out of some parts of it, but not all. If you care about her as much as I know…and suspect you do…please listen to her, understand her and help her do what she needs to do the right way.”

Amity didn’t know where to begin with any of that. Some parts more than others. Some parts Willow definitely shouldn’t talk about more than others…even if she didn’t look disgusted by them. Which probably meant the other parts of this were much more terrifying than she made them out to be.

And yet it seemed she’d handed off the responsibility of explaining those parts to…the person suffering most from them. If she was suffering, then Willow could have shortened this whole thing and spared Amity extra panic by saying that part only.

“Where is Luz, Willow?”

“She’s in her room. Hopefully she’s still not ready yet. We can’t get through to her, so it’s going to have to be you.”

Again, if Willow had led with that and cut the rest out, Amity would have been up there by now. And would have been slightly more confident and far less confused. The only positive thing she could hold onto was Willow trusting her again.

As long as she didn’t screw up something she in no way prepared her for. Or maybe it just didn’t look that way now.

Whatever way it was, Amity finally got clear to reach Luz’s room. With bats in her stomach that somehow made the usual bats feel far more tolerable. Which might have been the most terrifying implication of all.

Which immediately placed second to the moment Amity opened Luz’s room without knocking, saw Luz kneeling on the floor with her back turned while wearing some kind of cloak…then saw her go unnaturally stiff and still the second she asked “Luz?”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Luz told them not to let Amity know. She couldn’t know, they knew why and they still brought her here.

Were they so mad about her trying to spare their lives that they had to do this to her? Especially now? How could she possibly do what she had to do after what…she knew was going to happen now?

It couldn’t happen now. It just couldn’t. Amity needed to go before it did. For the first time ever, Luz needed her – desperately needed her – to go away.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Luz tried on for size, her mouth filling with bile worthy of… _her_ cooking. That had to be enough to do it.

“Willow seems to think otherwise,” Luz heard Amity reply and wish she didn’t. “Unless her word’s not good enough for you all of a sudden.”

“What other words did she use?”

“None that made any sense. Are you gonna try and do better?”

“You don’t want that. You think you do, but…that’s why I didn’t want you here,” Luz tried to shut this down while she still had the strength.

“Well, I’m here anyway and I’m not going, so what happens now?” Luz heard Amity use the exact wrong sequence of words. The exact right one that revived all the worst-case scenarios of how Luz knew this was going to go.

Maybe it would hurt a little less if she spoke them out loud before Amity could. Maybe…

“I know exactly what happens now. I tell you what happened, you defend Lilith for what she did to Eda…what she did to me, and you hate me forever for ruining yet another one of your dreams. You’ll say Eda deserved it for being a ‘criminal’ and maybe you don’t turn me in right then and there before I go after her, or maybe you do it later. But it’ll happen eventually.”

“Or maybe you try to convince me you believe me, and you try and help me, but only to ‘save my life’ before I can save Eda. Or you actually do try to help me, but eventually they get to you and make you one of them. Or you blackmail Lilith into becoming one of them here and now, we fight on opposite sides the rest of my time here, and _maybe_ you only turn back at the very end! I mean, what kind of story would it be if there was any relief _before_ the end?”

“Whatever storyline it is, it ends the same. With you choosing the dream you’ve had all your life, over a stupid screwup who destroyed too many lives already! I know how it’s supposed to go, and it’ll hurt too much to hear it directly from you. So why don’t we pretend you said it already, and you let me go before you run to Lilith and stop me?”

Almost every part of Luz that barely held on inside begged and pleaded for her to shut up. To give Amity much more credit than that. To not let Luz cut her off by her own choice, when she’d already been cut off from so much by someone’s else. To turn around and at least try to get some comfort from Amity…for the last time before she turned her away.

But she couldn’t. She’d read enough stories and lived through enough of her own, only to finally realize now it wasn’t meant to go that way for her. For Azura and straight white male heroes, maybe. Not for her. Never for someone like her.

Amity was going to realize that soon. She had it and her pegged from the very start, really. Once this made her remember for good, it would hurt worse than anything since the duel. How else could it go?

Luz just couldn’t stand to hear her say it out loud. Not before she had to go back. And if she heard anything different from her, it would be so much worse.

So couldn’t Amity go now and spare them both from the inevitable a while longer? At least until Luz got Eda back and they inevitably fought Amity and Lilith together?

It was going to hurt enough then. Why start the process now?

And why run the risk of it hurting so much more by going the other way?

“I can’t make corpses or griffins of what’s going on here,” Luz heard Amity start. “The only thing I understand is you think I’m going to betray you…somehow! You’re assuming before I’ve done anything, or you’ve _said_ anything that makes sense, that I’ll turn against you! You never even did that when I… _thought_ I hated you!”

Why did Amity have to make it sound like that? Like she couldn’t believe there was a time she thought she hated Luz? Like she shouldn’t hate her now? Like she wouldn’t once the rest of it sunk in?

“You’re the only one who’s never assumed the worst about me! Even when I was at my worst! Now you think I’m going to be that way again? For no reason at all?”

Not no reason…please don’t force the reason out more than she already did…

“I’m going to need a lot more to go on than that! One way or another, one of you is gonna tell me what’s going on here! One of you will tell me what’s so wrong that I’ll…magically hate you if I find out!”

“WELL, YOU SHOULD!!”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Luz turned around. Immediately, Amity wished she hadn’t. Immediately, she knew she’d never get the sight of Luz’s wide eyes filled with angry, awful, crestfallen running tears out of her mind.

All that before her words guaranteed it.

“I’m the one who wanted to break Eda’s curse by stealing the Emperor’s magic hat. I’m the one who got captured by Lilith and almost got Willow and Gus hurt. I’m the one Eda threw her entire life and freedom away for! I’m the one who almost got killed by someone WHO CURSED HER OWN SISTER!”

“Now you know the only adult who taught you anything of value your whole life is a monster. That the only thing you wanted to be part of your whole life…the thing you were forced to throw Willow and so much of the best of yourself away for…is full of monsters. Now I’ve tainted one more thing, the biggest thing, in your life…so how can you still not hate me?”

“How can you not hate me when I hate me? When it’s all my fault…”

Some parts of this were starting to make sense. Some parts still sounded too outlandish to. _But I’m begging you…keep those feelings to yourself until you truly, completely listen to her._ Now that made sense only too well.

Yet none of that compared to the most overwhelming, most important thing. Luz Noceda breaking down in full, miserable, self-loathing sobs and tears. Nothing was more important, unnatural and awful than that.

Amity did the only thing she could do. The only thing anyone with a soul would do. The one thing Amity hadn’t dared to do in so many years, and could barely stand the heartache when she imagined a reality where she could.

Run to a hurting friend and hold her until she cried all her tears out. Until she proved to her she didn’t and could never hate her. Could barely stand to imagine going back to pretending she did anymore.

Until Luz calmed down enough to fill in all the remaining blanks to the worst story of all time. A story…not as outlandish as it sounded in the initial retelling.

Albeit 20 times more horrifying.

“I have to save her, Amity,” Luz said against her shoulder when she finished. “She’s the reason I’m here. Why you’re all here with me. She’s the first person I ever met who…accepted every single part of me. And she gave every part of herself up for me…so I have to get her back. And I have to do it myself.”

Amity could understand every part but that last one.

“Well, not by myself, exactly. There’s no stopping King from coming along, but that’s bad enough! I’m not giving them another chance to take Willow and Gus away too. And I thought I could go before you…”

Luz finally ended the longest hug she and Amity ever shared. Yet another reason why it wasn’t the milestone Amity had thought such a thing would be. But so many things were no longer what she always thought they would be.

“You have to go. You have to forget everything I told you. Live like normal, keep devoting yourself to joining them, and you’ll be okay.”

“But you believe they’re evil now,” Amity recapped, sidestepping the actual debate over that theory for a blessed moment.

“You believe devoting my life to joining them is bad for me…and you still want me to throw away all the other good parts of my life for it. You do remember the last time someone demanded I do that, right?!”

“But you’ll be alive!” Luz defended.

“Yes, I know for a fact they’re evil now! I also know you’ve believed they’re good your whole life! I know I can’t change all that with one conversation! And I know how much it’ll kill me to try and fail! And kill you if I succeed! Don’t you get it?!”

“I can’t let someone else who means…so much to me suffer for me too! Not even if it’s their choice! Especially if it’s their choice! How could they?! How could _she_ choose that for…for…”

Amity considered it a small mercy that Luz didn’t finish that sentence. To say nothing of the mercy of brushing past that first sentence.

She willed herself instead to follow Willow’s now clearer advice. To push aside every objectionable part of Luz’s story and help her some other way. To understand Willow and Gus didn’t want Luz not to rescue Eda – they just wanted Luz to let them help. But Luz would never let that happen, and Amity still wasn’t sure any of it could happen. Let alone should.

Maybe some kind of compromise was still possible.

“What if I talked to Lilith?” Amity offered. “If she really tried to kill…” Now Amity couldn’t finish a sentence, for a myriad of reasons.

“Anyway, with my standing, I can get the word out very quickly. But I can tell her if she lets Eda go after curing her, I could stop it from reaching the Emperor.”

“The Emperor saw her do it! I saw him seeing her!” Luz objected, holding back on what else she saw about him for the moment. “Trust me, he doesn’t care!”

Now needing to resist arguing that as well, Amity somehow kept brainstorming. “Well…he’ll have to pretend to if enough people find out! Then he’ll have to save face by firing Lilith and letting Eda go! Yeah…then once Lilith is gone, the Emperor will put the Coven under better management, and everything will be fine!”

“The Emperor’s the problem! It’s not just Lilith, it’s him! The whole darn coven system’s the whole problem! Eda was right the entire time!”

“Okay, you have to know enough of our world by now to know that’s too far.”

“Because of a guided tour of lies?! You don’t know what I saw, and you wouldn’t let yourself believe it anyway, so how can you –”

Now Amity was starting to understand what Luz was trying to spare her from. Fortunately, it appeared she remembered in time too.

“This is why I didn’t want to argue with you. And there’s no time to. Eda could be a brainwashed zombie by now. If I don’t save her, I don’t want to spend our last moment together fighting…but it can’t be you fighting them with me either! Especially if you’re just pretending for me!”

“So instead, you’ll pretend you still want me with them? For me?” Amity challenged.

“If there’s any good left in Lilith, in that coven…maybe if you’re there to draw it out, it’ll be okay eventually. Even if I can’t see it. But no matter what…”

Amity’s breath froze as she felt Luz’s, for the first time since she carried her from the Grudgby field. Many lifetimes ago, it would seem.

She was so close, Amity might have passed out under normal circumstances. Now she wasn’t even turning red. Now it didn’t feel like something…new could actually happen. It felt more like an ending.

An ending that – like everything else before Luz came – was being chosen for Amity.

“I can’t let someone else who’s worth… _every world_ destroy their world too.”

Luz’s hand was on Amity’s cheek. Amity somehow still didn’t blush, but she was breathing heavier. So was Luz.

If there was even one single small chance it was for the same reasons, and if there would be no other chance to find out…if this could still mean anything, before a future Luz was convinced would end with them on opposite sides, for some time if not forever…if that and so much more could be averted with just one…

Yet like every other opportunity, Amity let it pass by without moving a muscle. This time, even while Luz was picking up King, running out of the room, out of the house and towards the Emperor’s castle.

Even while Willow and Gus tried and fail to catch up to them. Even while they came back and urged Amity to tell them what they said. In what might have been their last opportunity.

Luz was gone. She left Amity behind, didn’t want her to catch up…didn’t want her to…

After all this, it was clear what she didn’t want. Regardless of how unclear everything else she left behind was.

She was right about one thing, though. It was so much clearer, less confusing, less filled with regret and less heartbreaking under…

And it was that realization that made Amity move. Whatever that said, or would say later on, it’s what made her be the next one to dash without a word to Willow and Gus. Not so much out of any high-minded goal to save them from risking their lives – maybe Willow if anyone.

They just couldn’t slow Amity down before she got there first.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“I have information about a threat to the Emperor. I won’t say anything else to anyone but Lilith Clawthorne. Tell her she needs to see me now.”

It took every considerable resource she could use in secret, the use of every secret route she knew of, and several promised favors she would surely regret later. As far as she could tell, all of it worked to get Amity to the Emperor’s castle before the others.

Unless Luz had somehow become stealthy and quiet in the last 24 hours too. Maybe Amity could leverage that with Lilith as well. As soon as this guard actually listened and brought her to Lilith, anyway.

After more time than she would have liked, Amity found herself in a familiar office, with a familiar mentor. Once she told herself it was indeed all still familiar a few more times, she began her pitch.

“I think I need to tell you something. But I need you to tell me something first.”

“Something or everything? Is that what this is?” Lilith naturally saw through.

“I know one side of what happened yesterday. Before I do anything else, I need to hear yours. I want to believe you did the right thing in capturing your sister…cursing her…and almost killing her…human. If you can help me keep believing it, I promise I’ll make it all worthwhile for you. And the Emperor.”

Whether or not Amity got through that without an emotional hiccup, it didn’t seem to matter to Lilith. Not on the surface, at least.

“All right,” she agreed. “I can’t convince her right now. But if anyone else could understand, it would be you, dear pupil.”

So Lilith spun her tale. Of a student who did everything right, everything she was told, for the good of her Emperor, her home and those who appreciated her. Of a sister who did everything in her power to make a mockery of everything that student lived her life by. Had to live her life by while her sister had the luxury of ignorance and folly.

A tale of someone who’s burden was finally acknowledged by the Emperor himself. Who gave her the chance to not only relieve it at long last, but to cure – to save – the one who put it on her. Who gave her the chance to not only save them both from unnecessary pain and turmoil, but to let them come back together in the Emperor’s Coven.

All it would take was inflicting one curse. One offer of a cure. One choice that was easy enough for everyone else except her. Then not only could they be true and complete sisters again, with no more differences to drive them apart, they would be an unstoppable force for the good of all together.

Then nothing else would matter. Not what it took to get them there. Not everything that drove them crazy about the other. It would all be gone in the name of conformity, unity and harmony, and everything good they still had together would remain. Once it was over, she would see that. Or at least she was supposed to.

“I fought for almost 20 years to get my sister back. Now she’s right here,” Lilith reflected. “Soon everything…less than lovable about her will be gone, and only the parts I – we, can all love without condition will remain!”

Lilith then pulled out a bottle of the reddest potion Amity had ever seen. “Once I give Eda this cure for her curse, and for all the other…afflictions that kept her from serving the Emperor, then we can be together again! The right way, as we serve him the right way too! Then it will all finally be over.”

“What’ll be over?” was all Amity could bring herself to react to.

“Everything that made her the bane of my existence! Everything I had to endure, just for the promise of getting the parts of her I still loved back! Without those more…irritating elements of her, I had a perfect life! I had my studies, my goals, my service, a clear plan for a life that was always meant to lead me here! Why did I need an oblivious, foolish, troublemaking, careless, thoughtless… _weird_ sister to derail all that?”

“Now in a matter of moments, I won’t have to put up with one any longer. Now I can return to a life made up only of what’s good, right, peaceful and of the best use to the Emperor. Now I don’t have to think about…any other useless, pointless distractions. Or anything else she brought up that caused me nothing but pain.”

“Now every awful, unpleasant feeling she made me feel will be gone forever. And then the life I’m supposed to have…that we’re all supposed to have, will be back on track. As it was meant to be, for the Emperor and us all. Isn’t that worth whatever it took to get there?”

A life without any distractions again. Without influences that brought about feelings, complications, aggravations and frustrations one wasn’t equipped to deal with. That one shouldn’t have to deal with. That were pointless in the long run of a life that was supposed to be lived a regular, normal way.

That would never give back as much as they took away. Never have the same deep, unexplainable similarities. Never trust enough when it counted the absolute most, never think about the damage they left behind to others until it was too late, then think about it way too much to make any real difference. Not any difference that counted in the end.

It was all going to end one terrible way or another. Or go through endlessly drawn out dark periods until any relief wasn’t worth it by then. Until any bright light that might have been there in the beginning was dashed like the false hope it was.

Leaving only the life that was meant to protect them from all that all along.

And just like that, Amity Blight knew what was supposed to happen.

“I assume you’ve already guessed that Luz Noceda is coming for your sister. She might be here already. But I can tell you who’s with her, who might come here later, and what she brought with her.”

“You can, can you? What needs to happen to ensure you will?” Lilith wondered.

“I want to be inducted in the Emperor’s Coven. Today.”

“Once Luz and her friends are made examples of, you need better examples to put out there. To assure everyone the next generation of witches are still in the finest hands. And whose would be finer than those of the youngest witch in the history of the Emperor’s Coven? Much less the star pupil of its leader? Who destroyed all the greatest threats to the Emperor in one fell swoop, no less?”

“That is an…interesting story to tell,” Lilith admitted, if not completely bought yet.

“And in the climax, I’m the one that gives Eda the cure,” Amity added.

“Hold on. In a story like this one, it makes far more sense if it’s me. After all this, it needs to be me.”

“Does it? This is the day you’re finally free. What better way to show your freedom from the old her, than to prove you don’t need to handle her anymore? By declining this last burden, trusting it to another, and letting it die with me and the old her while you reap the glory?”

As Lilith wavered, Amity went in for the kill by adding, “Don’t let her give you one last thing to worry about. Spare yourself the drama now that you finally can, so you can focus only on the good to come. Who else deserves such an early release if not you?”

Lilith let herself ponder that, grow soft from that, and see an 18-year overdue light at the end of the tunnel at long last. Beyond that, a future with no more trouble, in the hand of the greatest old – and young – witches of the coven.

“Very well. If the information you give me right now leads to the capture of Eda’s pet, and any other strays…they will watch, along with the Emperor and the entire coven, as you perform the initiation for yourself and my sister.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. That should have brought enough pain.

It should have been enough to see guards ready for Luz and King at every opportunity. To see Willow and Gus in the hands of other guards just when Luz was getting somewhere.

To see monster Eda bound and tied down in the ceremony room they were in now. To see Lilith and what looked like the entire Emperor’s Coven facing her, while the Emperor himself was watching silently in a balcony above them.

It was a small mercy they weren’t in his actual throne room with the beating heart. But all mercy, and all previous pain, became small and meaningless from the sight of who else was by Lilith’s side.

Luz somewhat heard Lilith give Amity credit for warning her. She then somewhat heard Willow’s apparently colorful remarks at Amity, dwarfing even King’s threats. But Luz had no such energy left in her.

The mere sight of Amity there, alongside Lilith, looking every bit as indifferent as she pretended to be when they first met…that was the most draining dark magic of all time. After everything else, this was the final unbreakable blow.

Luz had told herself – if only to protect herself, on the off chance that was still possible – this could and would happen. She practically spelled out how it would to Amity herself. She thought saying it herself would be less painful than hearing Amity agree with her. Or living long enough to see her do it.

Like with everything else, she was more wrong than she could have imagined. Like everything else, she and everyone else would pay for it more than she imagined.

Although with both Eda and Amity gone now, it might be more of a mercy than a payment at this point. At least for Luz.

At least she would go quick. Before she had to see the shells of the people she…she had lo…

See them one moment longer than she had to. Which of course, Lilith had to drag out even further anyway.

“Before these miscreants are sent to the Conformatorium, they shall watch their better take her rightful place among us. They shall watch her put an official end to the era of the Owl Lady, and all she represents, once and forever!”

Amity fittingly turned her back to the other children, demons and creatures, kneeling before Lilith as she presented her ‘cure’ to her…soon to be their people.

“Take this cure, as you take the gifts of acceptance from our Emperor and his Coven. Give it to our other new member, so she may never be parted from our favor again. And together our favor will spread through the Boiling Isles and beyond! Now and forever!”

The grasp of the guard was too strong for Luz to cover her ears. So it was to be torture as she heard the voice…her voice, seal her fate and the fate of those who would have…still would have if she’d only given them the chance to…

If only she’d done so many different things. Things she thought she’d have some time left to fully work out. Work through. Understand, accept, stop pretending she didn’t somewhere deep down and…

But now there was nothing, all because of Luz. Soon she wouldn’t even have friends who’d try in vain to tell her it wasn’t her fault. Soon she probably wouldn’t remember them, although that might become a blessing by the end.

If only she wouldn’t be able to remember hearing her voice right now, speaking words implanted into her, for what would likely be the very last time.

“With this deed, I pledge myself to a new life. And to the one who brought me there. The one that found a girl who wanted nothing more than to belong, then showed her the way to do it. The one who put up with far more along the way than she should have. More than she had any right to, on top of everything else unfairly put upon her.”

“Yet she saw through a difficult, ungrateful child and saw who was underneath. Saw who wanted nothing more than to come out, and to be who she was always supposed to be. Be someone she never properly knew or understood how to be, until she took her in. Gave her what she always truly wanted her entire life.”

“It is in her name that I perform this service. It is her name that I dedicate the rest of my life to be worthy of this service. Of her and those blessed enough to be in her light. Myself most blessed of all.”

“Myself most blessed to…to…”

It was already painful enough to hear all this from Amity. Hear all this directed at _her_ , when it should have been…

So why draw the last words out any longer?! Why look so stiff all of a sudden? Why go all soft just now…?

“To love her.”

Why…

Why was her head turning around? Why it was facing…

Facing Luz with red all over her face, as if she was angry…yet with a look in her eyes she’d seen far too many times to mistake for anger. Not to mention that…smile…

Wait a minute.

Wait just one…

Smile, red face, declaration of love, words that by all accounts described…anyone else far more than they ever could have described Lilith…but yet she directed them right after the end at…at…

_Oh._

Oh. Oh, dozens maybe hundreds of times oh.

But if that meant…what Luz was starting to think it might…starting to wonder if it could…if those words were really for…

Then that meant…

And like that, everything snapped into place. Then and now. Now, as all the warmth in Amity’s face and lips – oh that face – was replaced with a more familiar look of ferocity.

Ferocity that heralded her throwing the ‘cure’ at the nearest wall away from Eda. Breaking it before one drop could ever ‘cure’ her.

“What have you DONE?!”

Instead of waiting for an answer, Lilith swung her staff in Amity’s direction. But by then, Amity had pulled out two very different items. One her training wand, and the other…

A piece of paper. A paper that wasn’t blank. In fact, it had marks like…exactly like.

_Her_ marks.

If there was any breath left in Luz, it vanished the moment she saw Amity with a drawing of _her_ light glyph. A drawing she just put on the top of Lilith’s staff as it aimed at her.

A drawing she was aiming her own wand at now.

A wand at maximum power.

A wand that shot itself at Luz’s glyph just before Lilith’s staff activated.

And from that…nothing but light.

Light beyond anything Luz had produced before. Magic power beyond anything she had seen from Amity. But combined together…

The sheer brilliance of their combined light and blight magic blew everything away. Literally.

Blew Lilith’s staff completely into two pieces.

Blew the rest of the Emperor’s Coven backwards, and even made the Emperor himself struggle to stay on his feet above them.

Blew the guards holding Luz, Willow, Gus and King back enough to release them instantly, as they blew away in different directions.

Blew Amity away until she landed on her feet in the back of the room, almost as if it was choreographed that way.

Last but certainly not least, it blew the magical ropes and restrictions on Eda completely away. Something she noticed a split second after the light faded, and a split second before everyone else’s vision returned.

That was all she needed. Exactly as Amity planned.

While most guards and coven members were preoccupied with that little detail, some still had enough focus to remember the kids.

To that end, Amity tossed out several more pieces of paper as she got back to the children. All with the same glyph. Of course, since Amity had drained a good deal of her wand’s power on the first one, there was only so much she could add to these.

Yet once Luz got the idea, turned the glyph into balls of light and put them in range of Amity’s wand, it proved more than enough.

Luz kept some paper to put on the ground and lift charging guards up into the sky. Where Eda was waiting for them. But she wouldn’t settle for those portions for long.

By then, the Emperor had already left. By then, Lilith was nowhere to be found either. Yet there was still way too much for anyone to handle alone.

“Go! Get Eda!” Amity ordered Luz and King. “If there’s a way to cure her and leave the rest of her alone, it’s in you two! We’ll give you enough time down here!”

“But…”

Luz didn’t know what to say. To Amity, about Amity, about everything she did, said, was…everything she felt…

Nonetheless, all that was temporarily overshadowed by the return of Luz’s worst fear. All of them in danger because of…

“It’s okay, Luz!” Willow insisted, likely not for the first time today. But perhaps this was the first time it could work.

“We’re all here because you changed our lives! Made them so much better! Made us so much better!” she said with a loaded look at Amity at the end – filled with far less contempt and far more warmth, of the kind she hadn’t used in years, than the looks of a few minutes ago.

“Now it’s our turn to save you. And the lady who made it all possible.”

That actually seemed to do it. That or the next wave of guards who just had to interrupt, before Luz could take one more meaningful look at Amity.

Instead, she had to settle for seeing her yell, “Go! We’ve got this!” before she picked up King and rushed off to do what she came here for. Somehow.

And yet somehow, despite still having no idea how to properly cure Eda, the sight of the three greatest friends in any world buying her time – led by someone who went beyond greatness after all – told her she had everything she needed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Amity had no idea if anything had worked.

Luz and King had been taken away by monster Eda and flown out of the ceremony room long ago. Amity, Willow and Gus had held off as many minions as they could before they left the room themselves, and now they were all scattered in the hallways trying to hide or do anything useful.

For her part, Amity hadn’t seen a Coven member or guard in the last few minutes. Thankfully, there was still enough power in her wand to handle a few more, if only a few.

None of which had conjured anything as powerful as the magical blast Amity narrowly dodged a moment later. Which meant…

Which meant that even with only the top half of her staff, Lilith had far more magical reserves than she did.

Maybe Amity couldn’t make her use up all of it before she found Luz and Eda. But she could try.

She only had a few blasts to spare to fire back at her as she ran down the halls. Once she turned a corner and started hiding, Lilith turned to another approach.

“You lied to me!” she recounted with a fury worthy of the Blight household. In every terrible way. “You cost me everything! You, who were supposed to be the new me!”

Amity realized only then what the feeling inside her was. The one she buried at the ceremony, the one she kept from bubbling up in Lilith’s office, the one she felt inside her from the second Luz told her what happened yesterday. A feeling that didn’t exactly feel unfamiliar even then.

But one she could finally voice and mean with all her heart now.

“I’m DONE being you!!”

It might have been unwise to let that fuel her back out into the open. To dodge Lilith’s blasts and fire a few of her own that didn’t hit her. Yet for this moment, she didn’t care.

She was done letting Lilith influence what she cared about. Had been for longer than she realized today, or longer. And she was done hiding things for Lilith’s behalf, or her own, for long enough.

“I’m done hurting people who’ve done nothing but care about me! That’s the closest I will EVER come to being you ever again!”

It felt so good to say and feel at last. Until Lilith responded.

“You’re just like the rest of them!!”

A cutting and revealing response. Yet one not nearly as cutting as the blast she aimed at the ceiling above Amity, dropping enough material from the roof to block her escape.

The pile wasn’t big enough that she couldn’t jump over, though. But Lilith had a way around that too.

Namely, blasting a big enough piece of roof down to land squarely on Amity’s barely healed leg before she got on her feet.

Now that she wasn’t getting up for quite some time, the trapped and once more handicapped Amity was held at staff point by Lilith again. Only now she was out of wand power and papers.

“So now what?” Amity coughed out, hoping to hide the pain and other emotions from Lilith a while longer. “You’ll curse me too?”

“I don’t need to curse you to curse you. I don’t need to do anything else to you! Except sit back and watch.” Lilith left hanging, then got too impatient to wait for Amity to guess the rest.

“Watch after your parents find out.”

That did it. That one truth she had managed to avoid until now…that one truth which could have derailed all of this if she’d let herself think about it before now…was enough to almost undo everything now.

And perhaps forever.

“You’re not going to the Conformatorium. Or anywhere else they’re going. You’re going back home, and when I’m finished explaining everything to them, who knows when you’ll come out. And even if you somehow survive that, it’s not like there’ll be anywhere to go from there. Not anymore!”

Amity trembled for the first time since she’d been here. All she could do to balance it out was continue to frown at her former mentor. Her former idol, who knew _exactly_ what she meant when she said Amity might _somehow_ survive home. And no longer cared.

All Amity could do was give her most defiant frown. Even as she felt the tears of fear falling down her eyes while Lilith continued unscathed.

“The _one_ consolation I take from this…fiasco is that unlike me, you’ll never get back what you lost! You will never be near that disgusting abomination of Eda’s again! You will never have a coven! You will never have a safe haven again! You will never find anyone blind enough to care for you again!”

“And you will NEVER! HAVE! A FAMILY!!”

The madness in Lilith’s voice was only slightly louder than the voices in Amity’s head. All the voices of anger, rejection and so much worse that were to come. For now and indeed forever.

And yet, one voice that wasn’t nearly as loud then interrupted them all. One Amity wasn’t nearly as familiar with, but one she recognized enough to be stunned to hear again.

Let alone in the serious tones she was hearing now.

“Wrong as usual.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It worked.

Luz had no idea how, and she didn’t care to nitpick. Not when she was here. When she was back.

When she initiated the hug this time.

“Eda!” Luz exclaimed, not caring which magical despot could hear. Not when she was back.

Not when she didn’t kill her.

“I’m so sorry!” she had to get out of her system one last – hopefully last – time. “I shouldn’t have let this happen…all I wanted was to cure you!”

“And what do you know? You did it,” Luz heard the warmest words she’d ever heard in her life. “Took the long way for me to get where I needed. But that seems to be my pace, doesn’t it?”

Before Luz could agree and cry her very last tears of guilt, she heard a much more painful cry ring out in the halls. A cry from a voice she never wanted to hear at that pitch.

“Amity!” Luz broke away from Eda, all her relief turned right back to fear. “I don’t know how much you remember, but she’s the one who saved you first! She saved…she’s…”

She was…there were no words. There were all the words. And no time to say enough of them.

But in the surest sign she was indeed back, Eda was straight and to the point. “Well, when you put it that way…”

The next thing they knew, Luz followed Eda and King down the halls, hearing more of Lilith’s loathsome voice and Amity’s much smaller yet much stronger voice the further they went. Until they found them right around the corner, with Lilith towering over Amity and a pile of rubble.

One big piece of which was trapped on top of Amity’s just healed leg.

Luz wanted to jump out and destroy Lilith then and there. Until she remembered what happened the last time she faced her without thinking. Yet Lilith kept going, torturing Luz without even knowing she was there.

To say nothing of Amity.

“You’re going back home, and when I’m finished explaining everything to them, who knows when you’ll come out. And even if you somehow survive that, it’s not like there’ll be anywhere to go from there. Not anymore!”

Luz barely stopped herself from screaming at her. Or doing something else loud enough to make her stop talking. She was straining to restrain herself so much, Eda and King didn’t dare to touch her and tip the scales either way.

So Eda used her words instead. “It’s okay. I got this one. Follow my lead this time.”

Luz tried her best to tiptoe quietly behind Eda as she got in position. She was far enough away from Lilith not to draw attention, as her back was turned while spitting pure hate at Amity.

“You will never be near that disgusting abomination of Eda’s again!” That was only slightly easier for Luz to endure hearing than what came next.

“You will never have a coven! You will never have a safe haven again! You will never find anyone blind enough to care for you again!”

Luz urged herself to hold on a little while longer, against every natural instinct she had. She made herself remember how lucky Eda was to be here, after the last time she jumped without looking. She made herself look at Eda to remember for a few more seconds.

But Eda’s attention wasn’t on her. Fact of the matter is, it didn’t even seem to be on Lilith. Not so much as the object of Lilith’s ire, as Eda saw it barely hold together against her threats.

“And you will NEVER! HAVE! A FAMILY!!”

Luz saw the same look on Eda that haunted her since yesterday. Only it wasn’t filled with black magic. It was something filled with…a different kind of magical ire.

One that didn’t look to be entirely fueled by her sister. Not in the way Luz had expected.

Whatever was fueling Eda, it drove her to march down the hall at the still unsuspecting Lilith, who remained focused on nothing but breaking the fragile spirit of a child. Until they both heard it.

“Wrong as usual.”

Lilith only got so much time to register that voice. A voice she thought she’d finally never hear in that defiant tone again. A voice she’d never heard in that kind of defiant tone until yesterday.

She had even less time to register the owl shaped spirit that flew from Eda. Before it picked her up and threw her up and through the hole in the roof she created.

Where she landed, no one on the ground cared enough about anything but Amity to guess.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

With Lilith gone, Amity blinked enough tears away to see the happiest, tearful sight in the world. Yet Luz was only clearly in sight for a moment before something else blocked the way.

Something picking up the rock on her leg. Something…or someone, she honestly wasn’t entirely sure she’d see again. Not in this form.

“Eda?” Amity hoarsely gasped out. “You’re really here?” She did it. Luz…well, of course Luz did it, but…

“Yeah, we can all break down the science later. After we skadoodle on outta here!”

Once Eda freed Amity’s leg, she solved the problem of her renewed walking problem by wrapping her right arm around her. Bringing her along with a protective grip Amity had…never felt from an adult before.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It got her far enough to join Eda, Luz and King out of the hallway. It got them far enough to find Willow and Gus a short time later. It looked like it was going to get them all the way home…

Until they got outside and found the Emperor himself, along with more of his army, standing on the other side of the drawbridge.

Until the group turned back to see Lilith returning with her own reformed army, blocking the castle entrance.

They were surrounded on both sides, some with far less magic left than they had going in. Some barely adjusting to having only two legs again, some unable to walk on their own powers, and some utterly drained in every other way.

And yet when Luz looked at the entire scene laid out in front of her…she knew it would be okay.

She knew they were going to win. Or at least get away and survive to win later. She knew because she looked at the whole scene.

A scene with everyone she loved at the center. Her entire magical family, all together again. An uncursed Eda. King, Willow and Gus, who made it this far with and for Luz after all. And Amity.

Her…her Amity.

Her defiant look in the Emperor’s direction, in spite of all the new and old pain inflicted on her today, was the final proof. She was her Amity to stay.

Regardless of how many meanings that could take later.

But they would live to find out. Without the lingering “will she or won’t she?” question of her loyalty hanging over for months on end. Without her needing to ‘turn back to the dark side’ only to get back at the last second, without any real time to enjoy it until the…final ending still ahead.

She might have lingering doubts about the choices she made later. Lingering, awful fears Lilith just put back into her. Fears that might be too strong for her at one point or another.

But at least in this scenario, Luz and everyone else who cared for her for real would be there for backup. To ensure she faced what was ahead with a team, instead of people she went back and forth on committing to, long after it should have been settled.

She had settled it today. And just because she might have done it ahead of schedule…or before she knew completely what it meant…didn’t mean there wasn’t enough drama ahead later.

This whole thing might not go in any of the ways Luz predicted all afternoon. Feared all afternoon. Was trained to expect to happen in those ways, long before this afternoon.

But as Amity’s eyes went right back to Luz’s, it gave her one more reminder that this way would be…much more interesting.

THE END


End file.
